Buy and sell your used items with these iPhone apps

Barcode scanner app ShopSavvy has been around for a few years now, but it’s about to receive a major upgrade. The ShopSavvy developers are integrating a feature into the app to allow users to scan an item’s barcode and then list that item for sale to other ShopSavvy users, creating a sort of instant Craigslist that they’re calling SavvyListings.

The combination of barcode scanning and user-to-user transactions is particularly, well, savvy considering that once a user scans the barcode the app will automatically populate with information about the item, meaning the user won’t have to bother with cumbersome descriptions or even provide their own photos.

But if you can’t wait for the feature to be added to ShopSavvy and you have items you want to get out of your house, there are already a few marketplace style apps that can help you out.

You can always go with the standard in online marketplace transactions, Craigslist. There are a number of Craigslist-friendly apps available but Craigslist++ ($0.99) has a robust feature set that should take care of whatever need you have with the website. Users can browse actual Craigslist postings, while the more visually inclined can browse listings via a photo wall. Posting using Craigslist++ is simple and all posts can be edited from within the app. Users who want a chuckle can also browse the “The Best of Craigslist” for a look at some of the more entertaining postings available.

If you’re more interested in buying or selling offbeat items, like the kind you might find at a garage sale, Yardsellr is a free app worth looking at. Yardsellr is not as feature-rich as Craigslist++ but it allows you to quickly list knickknack style items you’d like to have someone take off your hands. The search function for Yardsellr is also very photo-friendly, so you’ll know exactly what you’re buying before you take out your credit card.

Supposing you’d like another reason to kill time on Facebook when you should be working, Marketplace for Oodle and Facebook (free) should serve as a decent excuse. Users can quickly snap a picture an upload it via the Marketplace app where it will be instantly posted on both Oodle and Facebook.

You can set your own price, or simply give your item away for free if it’s really bugging you. The app has also recently added a “circles” feature where you can view items posted from like-minded groups. This limits your search options and hopefully provides you with exactly the kind of narrow-focus you need to track down (or get rid of) that one item driving you crazy.

Although I’m certainly excited about SavvyListings, and I can’t wait to see exactly how it will be integrated into ShopSavvy, there’s plenty of competition for marketplace apps. That’s not a bad thing, as often one app will have some features that another one doesn’t offer. However, ShopSavvy had better be prepared for some serious competition as it prepares its new offering. After all, it’s a buyer’s market out there.